Captivated by the landscape of Canada's east coast cities? Obsessed with the beauty of a public space, the dirty grime of a back alley, a sidewalk's everyday dramas or the evolving skyline of your hometown? Spacing Atlantic wants your urban photos. Please add them to our photo pool and we will select the best photos to be featured on our blog in our articles and in our Atlantic Snapshot series. Expose yourself and shoot away Atlantic Canada (and don't forget to focus!). Sorry, couldn't help myself. ...

DARTMOUTH - What do you get when you speak 'Hansel and Gretel' into the iPhone app Dragon Dictation? Well, to the surprise of Adriana Lilley, it wasn't Hansel and Gretel, it was 'Girlface'. Girlface seemingly fits into the concept of Lounders GETting Over It performance walks, where she edits the visual urban environment through digitally projected fragments. Recently, over a cup of tea at Steve-O-Renos, I talked to Brian Lilley, professor of Architecture at Dalhousie Unviersity and a participant in Lounders' walking series; so far, Lounder has initiated two walks in the GETting Over It walking series - Solstice Walk & South North. Lilley initially met Lounder through The Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture and Expanded Bodies: Art, Cities and Environment. Lilley appreciates the GETting Over It walking series for their 'augmented experience' - pushing and pulling him out of his regular routines and ways of experiencing the city. He tells me about his adventures in London where he studied at the Architectural Association and worked for architectural firms in both London and Berlin. With worldwide experiences of urban infrastructure and architecture, Lilley enjoys how Lounder provides clever insight into the walks helping participants experience urban geography in a way in which they would have never considered before. Regarding Lounders' themes of the walks, he explains that "there is a guide or intent, but no fixed way of interpretation; the character of the walk depends on how the walk is experienced." Lilley mentions 'states of liminality' and the 'derive', as a way of understanding and experiencing Lounders' walks. He describes the dérive as a city comprised of a series of fragments which are reassembled by the urban protagonist.  The dérive was defined by Guy Dubord, a french marxist and situationist who is well-known in regards to 'psychogeography'. Derive - and Lounders' walks - helps Lilley move beyond routine ways of seeing, thinking and understanding architecture and the urban landscape; and further allow him to consider new alternatives. Liminality on the other hand, is a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective state, conscious or unconscious, of being on the "threshold" of or between two different existential planes.

HALIFAX - Today and tomorrow ( May 7 and 8), Haligonians will take to the streets for a series of free urban neighbourhood tours that inspire citizens to get to know their city and each other by getting out and walking  for Jane's Walk Halifax. Jane's Walks' are coordinated nationally and internationally in the spirit of Jane Jacobs - a highly regarded community, grassroots urban planner. 2011 marks the 50th anniversary of her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961); this critically-aclaimed publication serves as an ongoing powerful critique of urban renewal policies. Jacobs went on to publish other books and to successfully protest major urban projects that endorsed urban sprawl.  Her community-centred vision started with the idea that local residents know best how to shape and improve their neighbourhoods. Foremost is her simple yet revolutionary idea that dense, mixed use neighborhoods are the key to the health and survival of a city. Decades later, her vision and approach has become a model for generations of architects, planners, politicians and activists. Following Jane Jacobs' influential visions on what makes cities great and how to advocate for their inherent community value, Jane’s Walk was developed to cultivate further a broad understanding of how cities – their economies, neighbourhoods, communities, and institutions – organically develop and thrive. The Walks also work to advance walkable neighbourhoods, to increase urban literacy and promote neighbourhood cohesion, civic engagement and leadership. Jane's Walk Halifax coincides with more than 30 city walks across Canada and in more than 70 cities worldwide in celebration of Jane Jacobs’s birthday on May 4th.

HALIFAX - Join artist, Aimee Brown this Sunday, March 13 at 2:00 pm for the first of three performative excursions; these excursions will celebrate the ritual and survival skills necessary for travel to sacred sites. Participants will meet at the Gatekeeper's Lodge at Point Pleasant Park in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and be guided by foot to and from the only potable water source in the park, mysteriously referred to as "The Holy Well". WHAT: The Holy Well Excursions WHEN: Today - Sunday, March 13, 2011, 2pm WHERE: Gatekeeper's Lodge, Point Pleasant Park HOW MUCH: Free For more information ...

ALL OVER - "Jane’s Walk is the street-level celebration of Jane Jacobs’ legacy that combines the simple act of walking with personal observations, urban history and local lore as a way of knitting people together into strong and resourceful communities." Since it's inception in Toronto in 2007, every first weekend of May (to coincide with Jane Jacobs' b-day), Jane's Walk sends swaths of pedestrians out to infiltrate and explore the urban landscape. The walks honour urban activist and writer Jane Jacobs who championed the interests of local residents and pedestrians, ...

HALIFAX - "In one of my first posts, I mentioned the Gatekeeper's Lodge was a fine example of Victorian-Gothic architecture - she's a beauty, but not alone in the city of Halifax.   This city holds gorgeous buildings that echo Victorian-Gothic (or Gothic Revival) style!  Wandering along Barrington Street, you may notice the defining features of Gothic Revival style; arched windows, ornate moldings and decorative trims, strong peaks, roof dormers and - low and behold... TRACERY abounds! What is tracery, you ask?  (at least I hope you do, because I had to).  Tracery is ornamental stone pattern-work, typically found in the upper part of a Gothic window.  But I digress...   The other Victorian-Gothic of particular interest this week is the Khyber Building, where tracery seems to be almost as plentiful above the windows as at the Lodge" (Aimée Brown, Gatekeeper's Lodge). With an aim to engage and connect the Gatekeeper's Lodge at Point Pleasant Park and the Khyber Institute, HRM Open Projects Initiative artist-in-residence , Aimée Brown will be performing an illuminated walk in Halifax on Sunday evening, February 13th, as a part of a performance series organized through the Khyber Institute for Contemporary Art. The walk will begin at the Gatekeeper’s Lodge in Point Pleasant Park at 7:00 pm and will progress through the city along Barrington Street to the Khyber.

DARTMOUTH - Discover Dartmouth with trusted Narratives in Space + Time (NiS+T) collective, as they take teens and adults out for a wandering tour of neglected monuments, abandonned gems (like graveyards) and unexplored paths. With the winter chill upon Nova Scotia, NiS+T recommends to dress warmly, as the Vision Pavilion's first workshop requires weaving through spaces and places in nearby neighbourhoods. Following the tour, participants will be flocked back to Alderney Gate Public Library to learn ...

HALIFAX, NS - As part of HRM's Open Projects initiative, artist Aimée Brown will be activating Point Pleasant Park through her project - The Gatekeeper's Lodge - over the next few months through in-park performances, outdoor installations and printed matter projects. As a location that has survived extreme weather phenomena [Hurricane Juan], Point Pleasant Park is an ideal microcosm for wilderness survival practice. Aimée Brown’s works will be presented as publicly accessible installations, performances, and open studio sessions at the Park Lodge, at intervals throughout the project’s duration. Some of the performances will take place without prior publicity, accepting the park’s regular users as audience, whereas other performances will be advertised and promoted in advance, inviting new user groups to the park who may not feel an immediate sense of ownership or normally identify with this public space, bringing a new public to the park. In relation to the above image and information captured from The GateKeeper's Lodge blog, Browns' initial series of research explorations are based on what could have been the burbs of Point Pleasant Park: